Re: Concerns about Singapore

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

On 4/9/2016 8:05 AM, Randy Bush wrote:
>> yes, we tried that.  My impression is that there were two changes we
>> made, one was known in advance (closed network)
> the ietf network in beijing was open as normal, thanks to the work of
> many.  it had registration, as had maastricht.  and we have passwording
> now.
Most of these things are not like the others:

We have ietf/ietf now - mainly for the benefit of the individual users 
(per client encryption keys), not the per user userid/password that we 
had in Beijing that was only available to registered attendees.

Calling the Beijing meeting network open isn't really correct - we had a 
reverse VPN to the Internet as it exists outside of the PRC.

We did registration in Maastricht simply to figure out the details 
before we got to Beijing - I'm fairly confident that Maastricht wouldn't 
have been different from the previous IETF's without the upcoming 
Beijing meeting.
>
>> the other was unknown (badges being checked)
> cf. rfid discussion in hiroshima.  checking badges has a varied history.
> beijing was conservative.
>
> randy
>

Beijing was the first and only time I can think of where the hotel/host 
provided us with guards (excepting watchmen for the terminal room).  It 
was also the first time that said guards actually kept out someone with 
a valid conference badge. Granted, the badge did not have the holders 
name on it, but it's really never been the IETF's policy to be overly 
concerned about who shows up as long as they are minimally dressed, not 
disruptive to the process and have attained reasonable standards of 
hygiene.  And even those standards have been waived at times.

I'll also note that we neither asked for the guards nor were asked for 
consent for the guards to be placed.  [I believe the previous statement 
to be true, but its possible that I was misinformed.]

It's a little late for this, but I'm suddenly wondering what percentage 
of the on-site registrants  in Beijing were local, and how that 
percentage compares with other meetings.

In any event, each location we've been to has had a challenge or two 
that we've either ignored or overcome.  Some candidate places will have 
challenges that we can neither ignore or overcome and should hopefully 
be down-selected in the meeting planning process.

Later, Mike